Chapter 20

WHEN the two youths turned with the flag
they saw that much of the regiment had crum-
bled away, and the dejected remnant was coming
slowly back. The men, having hurled themselves
in projectile fashion, had presently expended their
forces. They slowly retreated, with their faces
still toward the spluttering woods, and their hot
rifles still replying to the din. Several officers
were giving orders, their voices keyed to screams.

"Where in hell yeh goin'?" the lieutenant was
asking in a sarcastic howl. And a red-bearded
officer, whose voice of triple brass could plainly
be heard, was commanding: "Shoot into 'em!
Shoot into 'em, Gawd damn their souls!" There
was a melee of screeches, in which the men were
ordered to do conflicting and impossible things.

The youth and his friend had a small scuffle
over the flag. "Give it t' me!" "No, let me
keep it!" Each felt satisfied with the other's pos-
session of it, but each felt bound to declare, by

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an offer to carry the emblem, his willingness to
further risk himself. The youth roughly pushed
his friend away.

The regiment fell back to the stolid trees.
There it halted for a moment to blaze at some
dark forms that had begun to steal upon its track.
Presently it resumed its march again, curving
among the tree trunks. By the time the depleted
regiment had again reached the first open space
they were receiving a fast and merciless fire.
There seemed to be mobs all about them.

The greater part of the men, discouraged,
their spirits worn by the turmoil, acted as if
stunned. They accepted the pelting of the bul-
lets with bowed and weary heads. It was of no
purpose to strive against walls. It was of no use
to batter themselves against granite. And from
this consciousness that they had attempted to
conquer an unconquerable thing there seemed
to arise a feeling that they had been betrayed.
They glowered with bent brows, but danger-
ously, upon some of the officers, more particu-
larly upon the red-bearded one with the voice of
triple brass.

However, the rear of the regiment was fringed
with men, who continued to shoot irritably at the
advancing foes. They seemed resolved to make
every trouble. The youthful lieutenant was per-
haps the last man in the disordered mass. His
forgotten back was toward the enemy. He had
been shot in the arm. It hung straight and rigid.
Occasionally he would cease to remember it, and
be about to emphasize an oath with a sweeping
gesture. The multiplied pain caused him to
swear with incredible power.

The youth went along with slipping, uncertain
feet. He kept watchful eyes rearward. A scowl
of mortification and rage was upon his face. He
had thought of a fine revenge upon the officer
who had referred to him and his fellows as mule
drivers. But he saw that it could not come to
pass. His dreams had collapsed when the mule
drivers, dwindling rapidly, had wavered and hes-
itated on the little clearing, and then had recoiled.
And now the retreat of the mule drivers was a
march of shame to him.

A dagger-pointed gaze from without his black-
ened face was held toward the enemy, but his
greater hatred was riveted upon the man, who,
not knowing him, had called him a mule driver.

When he knew that he and his comrades had
failed to do anything in successful ways that might
bring the little pangs of a kind of remorse upon
the officer, the youth allowed the rage of the baf-
fled to possess him. This cold officer upon a
monument, who dropped epithets unconcernedly
down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought.
So grievous did he think it that he could
never possess the secret right to taunt truly in
answer.

He had pictured red letters of curious revenge.
"We ARE mule drivers, are we?" And now he
was compelled to throw them away.

He presently wrapped his heart in the cloak
of his pride and kept the flag erect. He ha-
rangued his fellows, pushing against their chests
with his free hand. To those he knew well he
made frantic appeals, beseeching them by name.
Between him and the lieutenant, scolding and
near to losing his mind with rage, there was felt a
subtle fellowship and equality. They supported
each other in all manner of hoarse, howling pro-
tests.

But the regiment was a machine run down.
The two men babbled at a forceless thing. The
soldiers who had heart to go slowly were con-
tinually shaken in their resolves by a knowledge
that comrades were slipping with speed back to
the lines. It was difficult to think of reputation
when others were thinking of skins. Wounded
men were left crying on this black journey.

The smoke fringes and flames blustered al-
ways. The youth, peering once through a sud-
den rift in a cloud, saw a brown mass of troops,
interwoven and magnified until they appeared to
be thousands. A fierce-hued flag flashed before
his vision.

Immediately, as if the uplifting of the smoke
had been prearranged, the discovered troops
burst into a rasping yell, and a hundred flames
jetted toward the retreating band. A rolling
gray cloud again interposed as the regiment dog-
gedly replied. The youth had to depend again
upon his misused ears, which were trembling
and buzzing from the melee of musketry and yells.

The way seemed eternal. In the clouded haze
men became panicstricken with the thought that
the regiment had lost its path, and was proceed-
ing in a perilous direction. Once the men who
headed the wild procession turned and came push-
ing back against their comrades, screaming that
they were being fired upon from points which
they had considered to be toward their own lines.
At this cry a hysterical fear and dismay beset the
troops. A soldier, who heretofore had been am-
bitious to make the regiment into a wise little
band that would proceed calmly amid the huge-
appearing difficulties, suddenly sank down and
buried his face in his arms with an air of bowing
to a doom. From another a shrill lamentation
rang out filled with profane allusions to a general.
Men ran hither and thither, seeking with their
eyes roads of escape. With serene regularity, as
if controlled by a schedule, bullets buffed into
men.

The youth walked stolidly into the midst of
the mob, and with his flag in his hands took a
stand as if he expected an attempt to push him to
the ground. He unconsciously assumed the atti-
tude of the color bearer in the fight of the pre-
ceding day. He passed over his brow a hand
that trembled. His breath did not come freely.
He was choking during this small wait for the
crisis.

His friend came to him. "Well, Henry, I
guess this is good-by--John."

"Oh, shut up, you damned fool!" replied the
youth, and he would not look at the other.

The officers labored like politicians to beat
the mass into a proper circle to face the men-
aces. The ground was uneven and torn. The
men curled into depressions and fitted them-
selves snugly behind whatever would frustrate
a bullet.

The youth noted with vague surprise that the
lieutenant was standing mutely with his legs far
apart and his sword held in the manner of a cane.
The youth wondered what had happened to his
vocal organs that he no more cursed.

There was something curious in this little in-
tent pause of the lieutenant. He was like a babe
which, having wept its fill, raises its eyes and
fixes upon a distant toy. He was engrossed in
this contemplation, and the soft under lip quivered
from self-whispered words.

Some lazy and ignorant smoke curled slowly.
The men, hiding from the bullets, waited anx-
iously for it to lift and disclose the plight of the
regiment.

The silent ranks were suddenly thrilled by the
eager voice of the youthful lieutenant bawling
out: "Here they come! Right onto us,
b'Gawd!" His further words were lost in a roar
of wicked thunder from the men's rifles.

The youth's eyes had instantly turned in the
direction indicated by the awakened and agitated
lieutenant, and he had seen the haze of treachery
disclosing a body of soldiers of the enemy. They
were so near that he could see their features.
There was a recognition as he looked at the types
of faces. Also he perceived with dim amazement
that their uniforms were rather gay in effect,
being light gray, accented with a brilliant-hued
facing. Too, the clothes seemed new.

These troops had apparently been going for-
ward with caution, their rifles held in readiness,
when the youthful lieutenant had discovered
them and their movement had been interrupted
by the volley from the blue regiment. From the
moment's glimpse, it was derived that they had
been unaware of the proximity of their dark-
suited foes or had mistaken the direction. Al-
most instantly they were shut utterly from the
youth's sight by the smoke from the energetic
rifles of his companions. He strained his vision
to learn the accomplishment of the volley, but the
smoke hung before him.

The two bodies of troops exchanged blows in
the manner of a pair of boxers. The fast angry
firings went back and forth. The men in blue
were intent with the despair of their circum-
stances and they seized upon the revenge to be
had at close range. Their thunder swelled loud
and valiant. Their curving front bristled with
flashes and the place resounded with the clangor
of their ramrods. The youth ducked and dodged
for a time and achieved a few unsatisfactory
views of the enemy. There appeared to be many
of them and they were replying swiftly. They
seemed moving toward the blue regiment, step
by step. He seated himself gloomily on the
ground with his flag between his knees.

As he noted the vicious, wolflike temper of
his comrades he had a sweet thought that if the
enemy was about to swallow the regimental
broom as a large prisoner, it could at least have
the consolation of going down with bristles for-
ward.

But the blows of the antagonist began to
grow more weak. Fewer bullets ripped the air,
and finally, when the men slackened to learn of
the fight, they could see only dark, floating
smoke. The regiment lay still and gazed. Pres-
ently some chance whim came to the pestering
blur, and it began to coil heavily away. The men
saw a ground vacant of fighters. It would have
been an empty stage if it were not for a few
corpses that lay thrown and twisted into fantastic
shapes upon the sward.

At sight of this tableau, many of the men in
blue sprang from behind their covers and made
an ungainly dance of joy. Their eyes burned
and a hoarse cheer of elation broke from their
dry lips.

It had begun to seem to them that events were
trying to prove that they were impotent. These
little battles had evidently endeavored to demon-
strate that the men could not fight well. When
on the verge of submission to these opinions, the
small duel had showed them that the propor-
tions were not impossible, and by it they had
revenged themselves upon their misgivings and
upon the foe.

The impetus of enthusiasm was theirs again.
They gazed about them with looks of uplifted
pride, feeling new trust in the grim, always
confident weapons in their hands. And they
were men.